Georgia football's projected playoff path with SEC championship loss
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The No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs play the No. 9 Alabama Crimson Tide for a shot at the 2025 SEC championship. Georgia and Alabama are both beat up entering the SEC championship game and after last year, when Ohio State won the College Football Playoff despite not playing in the Big Ten championship, some experts are saying it conference championships may not be worth the injury risk anymore.
Georgia and Alabama both downplayed the SEC championship losing importance. Both teams are highly motivated to win the toughest conference in the country.
“(Winning) SEC championships is one of the hardest things to do,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “You look how elusive they’ve been, how few programs have been able to win them across the SEC.”
There have been several years where the national champion was unable to win an SEC championship. Only six of the SEC’s 16 schools have ever won an SEC championship game (Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, LSU and Tennessee).
Winning an SEC would assure Georgia of a much-needed bye in the playoff. However, the loser of the SEC championship will be in a more difficult position. If Alabama loses, then the Crimson Tide could (but probably shouldn’t/won’t) fall out of the playoff field.
What would Georgia’s playoff path look like with an SEC championship loss?
For these projections, I am going to assume the conference championship favorites all win (outside of Georgia). So, Ohio State would win the Big Ten over Indiana, Texas Tech would beat BYU in the Big 12, Virginia would beat Duke in the ACC. In the Group of Five, North Texas would beat Tulane in a battle of the two highest-ranked Group of Five teams.
We’d project that Texas Tech would pass Indiana and that Alabama would leap past several teams to earn a first-round bye. With a pair of wins over Georgia, the Crimson Tide would likely be ranked over the Bulldogs, but we don’t think anybody else would pass Georgia and the Dawgs would be the No. 5 seed. I don’t see Georgia falling below No. 7 Ole Miss under any scenario.
Georgia would host a first-round playoff game against North Texas. The Bulldogs would be heavy favorites against North Texas and then have a rematch against Alabama in the quarterfinals (neutral site) in this scenario. The winner of Georgia-Alabama could play Ohio State in the semifinals.
Projected playoff field
- Ohio State
- Texas Tech
- Indiana
- Alabama
- Georgia
- Oregon
- Ole Miss
- Texas A&M
- Oklahoma
- Notre Dame
- Virginia
- North Texas (highest ranked Group of Five champion)
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This article originally appeared on UGA Wire: Georgia’s predicted CFP path with a SEC title loss
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